RFID Brings Relief to Solid Comfort

The staff now tags between 5,000 and 7,000 pieces of furniture every month. Initially, Larkin says, there was a problem reading the tags, though that issue was resolved when the firm replaced the printer-encoder, which was found to be defective.

According to Larkin, the first phase of the deployment enables him to view the progress of an order, and see how long it takes to fill that order, from the moment it is placed to when the completed pieces are moved into the warehouse. If a customer calls in for a status report, the AbeTech system can immediately show him whether that order was completed—and, if not, the number of pieces that still need to be assembled.

Each of Solid Comfort's RFID portals has an RFID reader and an antenna wired to a video monitor.

Once Larkin was satisfied with phase one, his company began working on the second phase—using RFID to track the loading of products onto trucks. AbeTech installed an Alien reader at the door to each of its two loading docks, in order to capture each item's tag ID number. The AbeTech software knows through which door each furniture piece should pass, based on the specific vehicle being loaded and its destination. For example, if one truck is destined for Minneapolis, and another for Fargo, the system will recognize an error if an item intended for Minneapolis is loaded onto the Fargo-bound vehicle. If that happens, the portal's 24-inch monitor displays an error message, alerting the staff that the wrong item is being loaded.

Once the loading process is complete, Solid Comfort has an electronic record indicating which items have been put on which truck, and can thus ensure that the order is complete and accurate.

When the truck arrives at the hotel, the hotel staff can begin unloading the furniture, and can use the printed text on the RFID labels to identify each piece, as well as the floor and room in which it belongs. If an item is broken or seems incorrect, the hotel staff can call Solid Comfort and provide the ID number printed on that piece's label, which the company's workers input into the AbeTech software. This enables Solid Comfort to easily determine which piece of furniture it is and where it belongs, in addition to which replacement parts might be required if it was broken.

The full system (both phases one and two) has been operating for the past six months, Larkin says. "It's had a dramatic effect on how accurate we are," he states. The use of RFID has reduced errors based on misloaded items, and helps organize the loading process if a large order does not fit onto a single truck. In the past, he says, this scenario could be especially challenging, since items might get put away, moved or incorrectly loaded onto one vehicle, while awaiting another truck to pick up the remainder of the order. With the RFID system, he notes, this confusion is eliminated.

Moreover, Larkin reports, he has been able to eliminate two full-time jobs that were previously spent tracking the location of finished product, and has reassigned those employees to other tasks. In addition, he says, there are now fewer calls from customers regarding incomplete or inaccurate orders. "I think my staff would lose it," he states, if the system were uninstalled. He believes he has already recouped the cost of his company's RFID technology investment.